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Baseball Cards and Smoking
5 April 2007
During the late 1800s cigarette smoking had become ever popular. Smoking was previously reserved for the upper class since the cost of hand-rolled, tin packaged cigarettes was steep. But now, courtesy recently invented machines, they could be produced more effeciently. In fact, the Bonsak Machine could produce thousands of cigarettes per hour.
While myriad tobacco companies were feuding for a share in the cigarette market an ingenious marketing ploy became popular. Since cigarettes could now be produced at about 10 percent their previous costs, packaging had moved from the expensive tins to paper packs. And the idea of inserting a single piece of cardboard inside each pack of cigarettes quickly became the norm. A slab of cardboard was meant to keep your smokes from getting crushed. Within a couple of years, an advertisement for the cigarette company was printed on one side of the cardboard. And pretty soon, baseball players were being printed on the other side.
Other companies adopted the idea of distributing baseball cards. From candy, hotdogs, and ice cream to caramels and gum, sports cards were now being packaged with just about any major product in a competitive market. One can compare the first 30 years of the 20th century to the card explosion of the 1980s and 1990s, where many sports cards were - and still are inserted in a number of packages on the store shelves.
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